culture shock

It's a bit of culture shock being back in the US for less than 24 hours after returning from China. It feels weird to put on a jacket after a week of hot, sticky weather in CQ, to have a clean public toilet, to drink water from the tap rather than water bottles, to have Starbucks coffee at the airport. My mind is still in China and wondering what our teammates are doing at 7:15am on Tuesday morning (hopefully on their way to class!) and what things Dad will show them this week. I miss the fast pace of last week and how we didn't know what was going to happen but knew that Dad was with us.

On the plane ride home, I finished reading a book about working with the poor. I hope to use some of the lessons in our training for a West Oakland project this summer. One lesson that sticks out in my mind is that we are all poor, that poverty is the result of broken relationships between Gd, self, others, and the rest of creation. It doesn't mean that we suffer equally the same as materially poor people, but we can gain from them as much as we hope to help them. We went to China to bring restoration to the students. In the process, I learned more about myself and areas of weakness. They reminded me of what genuine curiousity, thirst for truth, and living in community looks like. Could I live with more of that in my life?